Review of Adobe Creative Cloud – It’s the Worst

Recently I decided to signup for the adobe creative cloud monthly subscription plan available from Adobe at http://www.adobe.com/products/creativecloud.html. I have older versions (CS3) of Photoshop and Dreamweaver and wanted to try getting the latest copies of each on my system. Also thought it was a nice deal as it would allow me to have a full version of Acrobat and I could play with Illustrator in case I ever had clients send me AI files that I needed to work with.

So in theory, it was a pretty good deal…$50 monthly for three/four solid adobe products, two of which I use on a daily basis. In practice, it turned out to be a pretty bad deal due to the fact that Adobe makes really buggy products and their customer service is terrible. After two months, I’ve cancelled my subscription and am going back to using my old version of Photoshop. And instead of going back to Dreamweaver, I’ve decided to go with Aptana Studio 3 since it has several excellent features such as the ability to synch projects with Git, Subversion and automatically upload via FTP when saving a file.

The main problems I ran into with my Adobe Creative Cloud subscription that forced me to cancel it are outlined below:

There is a pretty severe bug with Dreamweaver CS6 that would pop up at least once every fifteen minutes. It seems like if you have a project set up to sync with Subversion that Dreamweaver would constantly be trying to check their synch status with subversion every time you make a change. As I would be editing files, Dreamweaver would freeze for 30 seconds or so and then prompt me that it had experienced an error trying to communicate with the subversion repository. This was annoying as the activities that I was doing at the time did not required subversion in any way, so it was a needless problem and seriously slowed my work down.

When setting up a subversion project, Dreamweaver asks you whether it is http or https. If you choose https, Dreamweaver will automatically set the port to 443. This is nice and good, but it also sticks the port number in the url of your repository url. It took me a few minutes to understand why nothing was working when I tried to synch with subversion. My repository doesn’t listen on 443, so having 443 in the url was breaking the process. Some might not think this was a bug, but the fact that the error reporting didn’t indicate what the problem was is definitely a bug in my opinion.

You can only activate a creative cloud subscription on up to two machines and there is no ability to buy an add on activation. I would gladly pay an additional $15-$25 per month to be able to activate an additional machine, but Adobe doesn’t give you that option. You can only buy two activations at a time.

I made the mistake of activating my Creative Cloud subscription on my two desktops and on my laptop without realizing that you can only activate it on two machines. I then deactivated one desktop and tried to deactivate another so that I could start over by activating the software on a desktop and a laptop. The problem is that you can only deactivate once per 72 hours. So rather than being able to deactivate my installs and start over, I had to wait three days. There was no exception to this and customer support was unwilling to help me. Here’s a portion of my chat transcript with them:

Peter Holcomb: I am still getting the error 194:110
Peter Holcomb: it tells me activation failed
Shivashankar: Are you getting the above error while activating the software or deactivating the product?
Peter Holcomb: activating the software
Peter Holcomb: I can walk you through what I’m doing.
Peter Holcomb: 1) I click on Dreamweaver CS6 icon to open it
Shivashankar: In this case, please try to activate the product within 72 hours.
Peter Holcomb: 2) It tells me “Maximum Activations Exceed” and gives me the option to “License this Software” or “Continue”
Peter Holcomb: 3) I click continue
Peter Holcomb: I log in
Peter Holcomb: I can’t wait 72 hours
Peter Holcomb: is there anyway I can activate it now?
Shivashankar: Peter, this is a known issue, A backend problem is preventing your product from launching. Wait three days and attempt to launch the product.
Peter Holcomb: I can’t wait three days
Peter Holcomb: This is not a viable solution
Peter Holcomb: If I have to wait three days, I’ll cancel my subscription
Peter Holcomb: to creative cloud
Shivashankar: I am sorry to hear that.
Shivashankar: Please click here:
Shivashankar: Please click the above link for the confirmation to wait for 72 hours.
Shivashankar: If you wish to cancel the subscription, I will be glad to check that for you.
Peter Holcomb: Okay, this is the last time I buy anything from adobe. This is pretty crappy service
Shivashankar: I am sorry for the inconvenience.
Shivashankar: Our Technical specialists are check this concern and this issue will be fixed at the earliest.

So, in summary, it only took two months for me to understand what a poor deal the Creative Cloud offering from Adobe is. I’ll most likely never buy an Adobe product again due to the buggy nature of their products and their poor customer service.

Update, September 5, 2014

I originally published this back in September, 2012. This post is now 2 years old and got some incredible responses because of Adobe’s eventual decision in 2013 to go to a subscription model only. I think it’s currently at spot #4 on Google if you search for “Adobe creative cloud review”.

At the time, I was incredibly disappointed with the service and cancelled my cloud subscription. I now no longer use any Adobe products other than an old copy of Photoshop CS2 I bought years ago. I’ve since switch all of my development to using IntelliJ. It was the right decision and I’m happy I made it. The worst part, for me, was the fact that I had originally agreed to a 1-year contract with Adobe, so I was never able to cancel my subscription until the following September of 2013.

81 thoughts on “Review of Adobe Creative Cloud – It’s the Worst”

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I have similar experience with Creative Cloud. After 2 assisted and 1 on my on uninstall/reinstall they finally tell me I hav to wait 3 days to try again. That is BS when I am subscribed to their product paying for the time and I can’t use. If I had a real choice, I wouldn’t use any Adobe products in the future either. This is happening with Adobe Illustrator but sounds like common ground for subscribers. They are hurting their own reputation by setting correction parameters outside reasonable assistance. What idiots!

I guess Adobe is trying some really big moves and changes like M/S Bomber. They haven’t notice whats happen to them yet. They can go down together. They lost my little $600 per upgrade. I guess I’ll lean Gimp. Greed…..

Our company purchased the CC suite and it is absolutely the worst version of their software to date. I’m a web/flash developer so I use Illustrator, Photoshop and Flash on a daily basis and they crash every day. I really wish they would have left Macromedia alone! At least I’d still have a stable version of Flash and Dreamweaver, I was used to Photoshop crashing.

This is awful. I been using the cracked version Adobe since 1997 starting with Photoshop 4.0 all the way till CS6 and the first Dreamweaver back when some other company made it till Adobe acquired it till cs6. Never paid them one dime. I will no longer support their product and will find some other cracked product to use and not pay for. Simply awful.

The only Adobe software product I have ever had just crash is the Acrobat Plugin for Excel and that was from Acrobat 9. The CC does have some bugs though. I have only found it with the CC software itself. So far, for me, PS, AI, ID, DW, AE, Pr, etc have all worked flawlessly.

@Tom Johnson how can you say ” I will no longer support their product and will find some other cracked product to use and not pay for. Simply awful.”? If you only use cracked versions you never have supported nor paid for Adobe products. You’re just a common thief.

Adobe now allow you to switch between installations instantly. You can have two machines running photoshop or whatever at any one time. To have a third machine, you need to sign out of one of the others. You can even move between Windows and Mac instantly so long as you don’t exceed 2 signed in accounts. It seems like they listened.
CC works perfectly well for me, not buggy in the slightest. I only have a problem with the price difference between one app and the whole CC monthly package.

As a software developer I understand their licensing. It is actually pretty nice under 1 subscription to be able to use 2 machines. Before you would spend hundreds if not thousands and it only worked on 1 machine. the 3 day rule is so people don’t use it on 10 machines for a company just activating and reactivating as needed.

I honestly think most of these complaints come from people that were using pirated versions of the software before CC came out. Very limited pirated versions now and every one figures $50 a month isn’t bad. Probably part of Adobe’s plan. But this isn’t pirated software people you can’t just run around installing it on what ever you want.

Lastly every software is buggy it is why they have updates. You try building a software of that size that runs smoothly on millions of computers. What un educated people do not understand is that while millions may be running the same OS. Every machine is different, specs, installed drivers, registry entry’s, etc. try to optimise your software for millions of configurations. Good Luck.

Adobe does a great job I have not had any major issues and the small issues I have had I report to their development sites and usually see a fix with in an update or two.

To your chat with them. Millions of clients and one guy spouting off he is going to cancel. Yeah they could give a crap. I wouldn’t either.

first off if a company does not care about 1 person then they obviously do not care period. all companys start out with 1 person. if they did not care about that one person they would not grow.

second, i come from a company who purchases a 50 dollar a month plan and let me tell you just how buggy and crappy their software actually is….

oh look someone emailed me a pdf. let me open it…oh my acrobat needs me to loginto my account….now im logged in, but my file did not open, then i have to reclick or open the same file from within acrobat. its like this for ALL products. click on a psd file, it will open photoshop but the image will not open. it then says cc has an update, ok i click update…..Error. please try your request again later….let me call support…oh click on the button that says try again? thats all you can say…..good bye adobe. u have been awesome in the past but i dont see you in my future anymore.

Adobes world of powerless renters. I have used adobe PS since day one. I stopped when they went to the subscription model simply because of the negative billing aspect and this renters philosophy. Auto renewal is a scam and is actually illegal in most western countries now. Well except good ol corporate controlled US of A.

Most people are also far to short sighted to figure out they will be paying for it ten times over now and will never actually own anything. Yes its a business write off , but its the point!

Adobe CC is the worst. It does not work with the new set of Pantone system. When you try to search for the new colors, it is missing. You have to purchase the new set of Pantone colors before you can use it and even then, the swatches are not readily available. I would go back to C6 or C5.5

Called Adobe to obtain a monthly Dreamweaver subscription. About two weeks in, I started getting warnings that my subscription would lapse in a few days.Called the help desk who put me through a number of useless steps then tell me to ignore the warnings. I’m fully paid.
Next, you guessed it, I’m cut off. Another call to the non-help service. More useless reloads and other steps. Now they need to send “a letter” to the Adobe IT department for advice.
In the mean time my credit card postings work like a charm. How can a company with such great products have such abysmal accounting and customer service.

I got a Dreamweaver subscription from CC and it only took about 3 days to figure out it was so buggy that I couldn’t waste any more time trying to recover from it crashing all the time. I ditched it pronto ! I run VMware and keep a copy of NT4 chugging along with Dreamweaver 3 that never fails me. Sure, I have to kick the html around a bit to keep up with modern standards but it doesn’t crash and cost me time and money. I will never to back to Adobe for any products …. I don’t see how they took Macromedia good stuff and made crap soup out of it. Any body found a good replacement for Dreamweaver ???

Thanks for the review. I have the same kind of feeling – I liked the look of the subscription model, it’s pretty good value, though it would be better if it was more flexible rather than having to choose either one or all (like the old web/design mini-packages)

But even though I like the subscription model I won’t subscribe. If Adobe was a good software company it would be different – the cloud-based model would be great. But the problem is Adobe is just not very good at making software. They make clunky awkward commercial production tools, not genuine creative apps. Their bread is buttered selling big corporate licenses, with every hasty CS release they just bolted on gimmick after gimmick without refining the software as an integrated suite, and without caring for the actual users who have to suffer with their buggy and crash-prone contraptions. The three best programs were Fireworks, Flash and Dreamweaver, which weren’t made by them, they were from Macromedia who Adobe sued and then took over. In Adobe’s hands these once great programs have all become nightmarish bug-ridden zombies that barely deserve to be released let alone paid for. They’ve canned Fireworks now, not surprising since it was pretty much broken in previous releases but they threw it in anyway.

Adobe just gave up on Flash for mobiles, it wasn’t because Steve Jobs hated Adobe or Flash, it was because their software wasn’t good enough quality, and rather than try to make it good, they just canned it. Adobe really only cares about easy profit margins and it would quit the creative software industry entirely if it stopped being so easily profitable for them.

When you add that onto the poor customer service, over-investment in sales & marketing instead of development, and the huge and covered-up security breach last year, I am going to take my subscription money and support open-source projects. I really wish there was a strong, well-backed rival suite to kick Adobe into shape. Or better yet, kick them completely to death!

I had CC for a year in a promo price ($30/month in a 1-year contract) back in 2012/2013. After a year they silently auto-renewed for another year and started charging me $50/month, which was way too much. When I wanted to cancel, they told me to pay up for half of the year of subscription per contract (that they renewed themselves). When I said fine, but at least asked them to turn off auto-renewal so I don’t get charged for another year, they said they can’t. So you either pay and cancel early and pay for whatever you did not use, or remember and exactly when they are about to autorenew, call and cancel (because of course you can sign up online, but you can’t cancel online).
WHAT A SCAM.
I was so pissed, I told them to just cancel. They agreed. A few weeks later they started sending me emails to pay them $$$ I ‘owed’ them for the service I did not use, want or order. Glad my credit card expired at that time so I could just show them the finger and they got nothing from me. They behave like a mafia, all they want is your $$$, their eyes sparkle and turn into $ signs when they see the dollars. Everything else is secondary at Adobe. Making software? Meh just a cover up to making more money. Users? Oh you mean the cash cows? I bet they call users cash cows internally and laugh at it.
I’ll stick to my old CS 6 as long as it works, and I’m sure by the time I need new software, there will be something new and fresh in the market.

I agree that Photoshop CC is the buggiest version since I first started using Photoshop back with Photoshop 7. We are having constant trouble withe the spell check crashing, hyphenation options dialog box crashing, freezing and general crashing. Photoshop 7 was the single most reliable, predictable and stable piece of software I ever used. I was so impressed. Photoshop CC is the most problematic piece of software on my computer.

Adobe has always been famous for several things. Among them are overpriced software, poor customer support, and software that consumes every available resource it can find.

For graphics, I use either the GIMP (available in all flavors–Mac, PC, linux) or an even less powerful program. Both of them do the jobs I need them to do.

Adobe’s fascist approach to software (“You VILL do it our vay! Ve know vat is best for you!”) i believe can be traced to its roots with Apple and the Steve Jobs “Trust me; I’m an expert!” philosophy. And while Apple has changed for the better over the years, Adobe has only become more entrenched.

I have had nothing but bad experiences with both software and support from Adobe. I will never buy a product from them again.

We installed adobe Illustrator cloud at work simply so another employee could make label changes at the label printer if I am out of the office.
WELL – So much for that! Cloud did not recognize valid fonts that work on CS6 (Bradley and Helvetica) and made me purchase them to the tune of $29 and $32 only to realize that families of fonts no longer exist for them. If I need Bold Helvetica that will be another $32.
It also does not seem to work to find and replace the old fonts with the new ones. You have to go line by line and replace and fix… this completely negates the idea of making things easier around here.
Adobe Cloud? you suck.
Highly Recommend not switching to it!

I wanted to see the program, my brother uses FinalCut Pro on his Mac and I wanted a PC equivalent.

First step, try out a pirated copy – just to ‘see’ this thing in action with all the features unlocked – to be honest, a friend had it handy and I thought, what the heck. it was up and running for about a 10 minutes and it loaded up fine, etc. Just a brief glimpse of what it looked like was enough to tell me that this was pretty much what I was looking for.

Okay, this looks good – let’s uninstall the pirate copy and head over to the Adobe website and install the 30 day trial with a view to buying it after the trial expires.

Now the problems begin –

During installation of the Creative Cloud all my desktop icons vanished – and everything borders on a serious crash. Quick, hard reset. Machine powered down

I signed up for Creative Cloud for a year, and almost every time I tried to use it I was blocked by an update requirement that took forever to download, or gave me an error and “try again later.”

Then Adobe had a Creative Cloud security breach, but failed to let customers know until months after our credit card info was stolen! This was shocking, and caused a lot of problems with having to cancel cards, fill out theft reports, etc.

It seemed like we were paying to be beta testers on a system that wasn’t ready for prime time. For example, Muse was constantly being updated, but why wasn’t it more fully developed before being released? And due to the many glitches in Creative Cloud, I was never able to fully use most of the CC applications anyway. I kept opening my older desktop CS versions just to get things done.

I’ve used Adobe products since the first CS, but finally cancelled Creative Cloud due to all the system hassles, the identity theft problems, and the fact that I didn’t want to be forced to rent software forever in order to maintain access to my own work product.

It’s a shame, because they have great software, but the Creative Cloud is not only a bad business model for Adobe, but also a bad business decision for users. I hope Adobe reconsiders and offers some better alternatives in the future.

I work with designers from around the world and was forced to upgrade to Creative Cloud about a year ago. It’s been OK, but not great. I hate the amount of time required for downloading, endless updating, etc. And let’s be honest, the product is not that much better for all the time I feel I am wasting in downloading and updating. My 1-year subscription for a monthly fee of 29.99 ended and the monthly fee jumped 60% for 49.99 which is quite significant for one-person design company. I called customer service, after a brief conversation with the person who answered the phone, I asked to be transferred to a supervisor. Long story short, the supervisor had the ability to alter my monthly charge to $29.99 for another year. I thanked him profusely. I echo what others have written – I wish there was valid competitor in the market place other than Adobe. I am grateful for the year extension on the discounted price, yet can’t help but feel like I’m being held an gunpoint.

Many people need more than just Photoshop. With the Cloud the cost really adds up when you add on Adobe programs besides just Photoshop. You can still Buy Adobe CS6 Master Collection for Only $151.00 which has Photoshop CS6 Extended, Illustrator CS6, InDesign CS6 and just about all Adobe software and it downloads right from Adobe who makes this Adobe software.

I started out on Adobe’s $29.99 trial basis, and though it later was a painful jump to $49.99, it has been worth it for me, as I use Premiere, After Effects, Photoshop and InDesign on a daily basis for client projects. I haven’t experienced the constant crashes others write about here, and while the updates often seem pointless and painfully slow, they work great..

My only running complaint with Adobe CC is that instead of adding new features and effects to their programs, they are too focused on mobile apps. Some of us still work on desktop computers, not on cellphones.

I am highly disappointed in Adobe’s Creative Cloud. I bought it for a graduate student to use on a project. And we never used it. My credit card just happened to expire at the same time my 1-year commitment was up. I didn’t update the credit card on the site and assumed that Adobe wouldn’t charge an expired credit card. But no they did and renewed me for another year. They continued to charge the expired credit card for 4 months meanwhile every month saying they were going to cancel my membership unless I updated my information. Of course every month they just charged it again.Who needs to keep credit card information up to date when they can just charge you on an expired card.

info: You are now chatting with Sandeep Singh.
James : Hello sandeep
James : I have spoken with you guys recently and you told me I could use FLVs if I download CS6 premiere and CS6 media encoder
James : but it still ownt work
James : please see video
James : Your file was successfully uploaded: trubshoot.mp4.
info: Your chat transcript will be sent to steven.james924@gmail.com at the end of your chat.
Sandeep Singh: Please allow me a moment while I look into your account & verify the details.
Sandeep Singh: Please Elaborate your Issue
Sandeep Singh: Are you there ?
James : yes
James : okay did you watch the video?
James : I was told CS6 premiere and CS6 AME would let me use FLV
James : but it still wont work
Sandeep Singh: Can you please elaborate the Issue that you are facing ?
James : any ideas?
Sandeep Singh: When you say you want to use them
Sandeep Singh: Are facing issue in Importing the file ?
James : yes
James : I need to edit them. I will export as something else (wmv, mp4 etc)
Sandeep Singh: James, there is no support available for CS6
Sandeep Singh: Please use Adobe forums to get help
James : no no, you don’t understand
James : you already did give me support
James : You sold me a product…a very expensive one.
James : THEN you took away support for FLV files
James : and you specifically told me to spend an hour and a half downloading CS6
James : and that it would work
Sandeep Singh: We can provide support for CC, CC 2014 & CC 2015 products
James : yes I HAVE CC
James : did you look at the previous chats?
Sandeep Singh: Are you trying to import FLV in Premiere Pro CC ?
James : but when you removed compatibility for flv you set up CS6 as the solution for flvs
James : it’s impossible
James : but yes i did try
James : you guys told me i would have to download CS6 AME and convert it to something else first
Sandeep Singh: James, please find support on Forums.Adobe.com
James : no
James : you guys are the ones that told me to download CS6 AME
James : i spent 1.5 hours doing that
Sandeep Singh: The only support available for CS6 is Forums.Adobe.com
James : apologize
James : this is horrible support and you are being dismissive
James : apologize first
James : then I’ll go to the forums
Sandeep Singh: Why should i apologize ?
James : people should have to tell you to apologize when their experience is so horrible
James : are you serious?
James : because of the severe inconvenience. thats why
James : what kind of business is this?
James : you realize you’re representing adobe right?
Sandeep Singh: You wanted to use FLV file, you were given an information that for FLV file you need to use Premiere Pro CS6
James : as a customer service representative, you apologize on behalf of the company
James : standard stuff
James : i’m reporting this. this is absolutely unbelievable

I purchased a personal account for Creative Cloud over a year ago. The software works well, as anyone who uses it knows, but the company itself is terrible to deal with. For a year I used the personal account for my own projects, but eventually I started using it more and more for work. I convinced my employer that we needed to update the Adobe software we had a work, and so my employer bought a team Creative Cloud membership – and so, I no longer needed my personal Creative Cloud account. I called Adobe in June of 2015 to cancel the membership and I explained the above to the representative. The rep said, how about we just suspend your account for the time being, that way, if you want to have a personal account again, you’ll be locked in at the low price you’re currently paying, which was roughly 29 bucks a month. I said sure, sounded fine to do to me. What I was not told is that what the representative was actually proposing was that she give me credits for two free months of Creative Cloud and that there was a negative option auto-renewal (negative option means you don’t tell them you want to renew, they just automatically “renew” you). Renew is in quotes for me because prior to this I was on a personal, month to month account paying just $29 a month. Well, the auto-renewal locked me into a 1 year membership at 54 bucks a month, WITH a termination fee if I wanted to end the contract I never agreed to enter into. I noticed this on my bank statement after 3 months of charges from them. When I called to clear it up, they essentially said well that’s just too bad. They then “offered” me to waive my cancellation fee (mind you, I didn’t sign up for a 1 year contract at any point), and told me there was absolutely no way they’d give me back the money over the last three months. When I explained that my employer was now paying for my account plus 4 others at work based on me being a brand ambassador for Creative Cloud, they still didn’t care. When I explained to them that it would make no sense for me to agree to pay for a personal account when I already have an account through work, and that they could see I haven’t logged into the personal account since I called to cancel back in June of 2015, they still didn’t care. It’s not their policy to give refunds and that’s that.

What a horrible way to do business, and what a horrible way to treat a loyal customer who was promoting your brand. I’m now trying to inform people in as many places as possible that while the software is good, their business practices are not. Beware, monitor your statements, know they there is a negative option for contract renewal, and they will not notify you of fee increases, you’ll just have to notice those on your own.

Worst customer service ever! Took a month to resolve my query regarding an account which was signed up for fraudulently with my bank details, then will not even issue a $1 refund for fraudulent use of said account. If they treat their employees the way customer service treats their customers, no wonder the service is the worst I’ve ever come across. Poor form Adobe. What’s a month subscription refund to you??

My work bought me Creative Cloud 2 months ago. I wanted to like it. I did Lynda.com tutorials. I used it daily for over a month.

Then I installed an old copy of Dreamweaver MX (!) and my own Photoshop CS5. It’s really shocking how software that’s 13 and 5 years old, respectively, is far superior in usability and flexibility to something brand new.

Try cancelling a subscription, Adobe, a computer company can’t schedule cancellations, they forced me to jump through their customer support hurdles twice to cancel. Apparently the 12 days before my next renewal were too hard to plug into a scheduler, weird since the payments to them always happen at the same time. Whoever has to enter all those must work fast? 🙂

Simply call your credit card company and insist they reverse the charges. They have to do it if you tell them usually within 45 days of the charges appearing. You might have to agree to hold the credit card company faultless, but you can stick it to Adobe.

I have had a miserable time canceling my Creative Cloud and Photography plan!!! First of all I have no email records to associate my Creative Cloud so they cant find it, but they find my credit card every month! And as for my photography plan January is my the end of my second year and I should be able to cancel. When I call I can’t talk to anyone else besides by representative that insist I have to pay half of my subscription! Adobe has the market place on these tools Students need for classes and I am Extremely Disappointed In the Process and the way you get blown off through the cancellation process online and on the phone!!

I have spent 10years building my credit and Canceling my card SHOULD NOT have to be an option!

I love Adobe products and used Premiere for video editing, Photoshop for drawing and photo editing and Audition for recording and mixing audio, but I agree that their customer service is horrendous.

I subscribed for the creative cloud membership for an annual monthly payment and after the 12 months were up (which I wasn’t notified of the date by email or anything) I was charged 30% more which was going to continue for the rest of the year and when I tried to cancel on my own it said that I would have to pay 6 months “cancellation fee” even though it was the first day of my “new contract”. I called customer service and I found the sales tactics to be highly offensive. I was wondering why my monthly charge was increased this year without any contact informing me that there was going to be an increase in the charge. The representative then told me that the monthly price is subject to change and that the rate that I started with was no longer valid. I told him I wanted to cancel. He told me what if he could give me one month free. I told him I would rather cancel. He told me what if he could give me two months free, I told him I really, really would rather cancel. He told me to wait as he’ll see if he can get a better offer from his supervisor. He then told me I could have three months free and I told him I would rather cancel, mostly because I really hate these types of sales tactics. He then put me back on hold again and after all of that he told me that he could get me in at the same rate that I had previously, but because of all of this nonsense I told him that I would rather cancel because I do not want to support a business that provides such poor communication about the fees of their software and uses sleasy salesman tactics like returning with a better offer that is a “one time exlusive offer” for me that becomes better every time that I tell them that I want to cancel instead of just offering their best option to start. He told me that he would cancel my membership and refund the first month’s payment but that this “lower rate” offer that he was giving me was a one time option and that may not be available in the future if I decide to come back in a couple months. I told him I understand. He then asked me if I knew about the self-cancellation option on the website. I didn’t receive any communication about the increase in fees or that my annual subscription would be renewed so why would I self-cancel? When I tried self-canceling before the call it told me that I would have to pay 6 months of my monthly subscription even though it was the first day of my new annual membership. This whole creative cloud subscription based software is such a scam.

Now it’s time for me to find alternatives to the Adobe products that I love.

I just think about should I pay for DW CC.I have many problem with this program.Program always “no responding” and working slowly I cant event type my code or open file.I try every step to delete configuration file or uninstall and install again.All the solution is not working so I don’t know why what it happening with this program.

Adobe CC is killing fair amount of my time …each time I restart my machine ….I need to download the newer version of it otherwise no adobe tool will work….after paying so much money (or they looting) we need to wast time on that ….

I definitely have doubt Adobe is filled with illiterates otherwise they have not taken this steps

I have been an Adobe product user for since the 90s. The one year subscription automatically renews and increases 1/3 in price. When you try to cancel, they state that you are in a “contract” and you must pay 1/2 of the contract amount $150. There is no two party consent to the contract and no end date so I’m not sure this is contractual. I would think this might be a good basis for a class action against Adobe. I paid the fee – will use open source to replace Adobe products

81 thoughts on “Review of Adobe Creative Cloud – It’s the Worst”

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I have similar experience with Creative Cloud. After 2 assisted and 1 on my on uninstall/reinstall they finally tell me I hav to wait 3 days to try again. That is BS when I am subscribed to their product paying for the time and I can’t use. If I had a real choice, I wouldn’t use any Adobe products in the future either. This is happening with Adobe Illustrator but sounds like common ground for subscribers. They are hurting their own reputation by setting correction parameters outside reasonable assistance. What idiots!

I guess Adobe is trying some really big moves and changes like M/S Bomber. They haven’t notice whats happen to them yet. They can go down together. They lost my little $600 per upgrade. I guess I’ll lean Gimp. Greed…..

Our company purchased the CC suite and it is absolutely the worst version of their software to date. I’m a web/flash developer so I use Illustrator, Photoshop and Flash on a daily basis and they crash every day. I really wish they would have left Macromedia alone! At least I’d still have a stable version of Flash and Dreamweaver, I was used to Photoshop crashing.

This is awful. I been using the cracked version Adobe since 1997 starting with Photoshop 4.0 all the way till CS6 and the first Dreamweaver back when some other company made it till Adobe acquired it till cs6. Never paid them one dime. I will no longer support their product and will find some other cracked product to use and not pay for. Simply awful.

The only Adobe software product I have ever had just crash is the Acrobat Plugin for Excel and that was from Acrobat 9. The CC does have some bugs though. I have only found it with the CC software itself. So far, for me, PS, AI, ID, DW, AE, Pr, etc have all worked flawlessly.

@Tom Johnson how can you say ” I will no longer support their product and will find some other cracked product to use and not pay for. Simply awful.”? If you only use cracked versions you never have supported nor paid for Adobe products. You’re just a common thief.

Adobe now allow you to switch between installations instantly. You can have two machines running photoshop or whatever at any one time. To have a third machine, you need to sign out of one of the others. You can even move between Windows and Mac instantly so long as you don’t exceed 2 signed in accounts. It seems like they listened.
CC works perfectly well for me, not buggy in the slightest. I only have a problem with the price difference between one app and the whole CC monthly package.

As a software developer I understand their licensing. It is actually pretty nice under 1 subscription to be able to use 2 machines. Before you would spend hundreds if not thousands and it only worked on 1 machine. the 3 day rule is so people don’t use it on 10 machines for a company just activating and reactivating as needed.

I honestly think most of these complaints come from people that were using pirated versions of the software before CC came out. Very limited pirated versions now and every one figures $50 a month isn’t bad. Probably part of Adobe’s plan. But this isn’t pirated software people you can’t just run around installing it on what ever you want.

Lastly every software is buggy it is why they have updates. You try building a software of that size that runs smoothly on millions of computers. What un educated people do not understand is that while millions may be running the same OS. Every machine is different, specs, installed drivers, registry entry’s, etc. try to optimise your software for millions of configurations. Good Luck.

Adobe does a great job I have not had any major issues and the small issues I have had I report to their development sites and usually see a fix with in an update or two.

To your chat with them. Millions of clients and one guy spouting off he is going to cancel. Yeah they could give a crap. I wouldn’t either.

first off if a company does not care about 1 person then they obviously do not care period. all companys start out with 1 person. if they did not care about that one person they would not grow.

second, i come from a company who purchases a 50 dollar a month plan and let me tell you just how buggy and crappy their software actually is….

oh look someone emailed me a pdf. let me open it…oh my acrobat needs me to loginto my account….now im logged in, but my file did not open, then i have to reclick or open the same file from within acrobat. its like this for ALL products. click on a psd file, it will open photoshop but the image will not open. it then says cc has an update, ok i click update…..Error. please try your request again later….let me call support…oh click on the button that says try again? thats all you can say…..good bye adobe. u have been awesome in the past but i dont see you in my future anymore.

Adobes world of powerless renters. I have used adobe PS since day one. I stopped when they went to the subscription model simply because of the negative billing aspect and this renters philosophy. Auto renewal is a scam and is actually illegal in most western countries now. Well except good ol corporate controlled US of A.

Most people are also far to short sighted to figure out they will be paying for it ten times over now and will never actually own anything. Yes its a business write off , but its the point!

Adobe CC is the worst. It does not work with the new set of Pantone system. When you try to search for the new colors, it is missing. You have to purchase the new set of Pantone colors before you can use it and even then, the swatches are not readily available. I would go back to C6 or C5.5

Called Adobe to obtain a monthly Dreamweaver subscription. About two weeks in, I started getting warnings that my subscription would lapse in a few days.Called the help desk who put me through a number of useless steps then tell me to ignore the warnings. I’m fully paid.
Next, you guessed it, I’m cut off. Another call to the non-help service. More useless reloads and other steps. Now they need to send “a letter” to the Adobe IT department for advice.
In the mean time my credit card postings work like a charm. How can a company with such great products have such abysmal accounting and customer service.

I got a Dreamweaver subscription from CC and it only took about 3 days to figure out it was so buggy that I couldn’t waste any more time trying to recover from it crashing all the time. I ditched it pronto ! I run VMware and keep a copy of NT4 chugging along with Dreamweaver 3 that never fails me. Sure, I have to kick the html around a bit to keep up with modern standards but it doesn’t crash and cost me time and money. I will never to back to Adobe for any products …. I don’t see how they took Macromedia good stuff and made crap soup out of it. Any body found a good replacement for Dreamweaver ???

Thanks for the review. I have the same kind of feeling – I liked the look of the subscription model, it’s pretty good value, though it would be better if it was more flexible rather than having to choose either one or all (like the old web/design mini-packages)

But even though I like the subscription model I won’t subscribe. If Adobe was a good software company it would be different – the cloud-based model would be great. But the problem is Adobe is just not very good at making software. They make clunky awkward commercial production tools, not genuine creative apps. Their bread is buttered selling big corporate licenses, with every hasty CS release they just bolted on gimmick after gimmick without refining the software as an integrated suite, and without caring for the actual users who have to suffer with their buggy and crash-prone contraptions. The three best programs were Fireworks, Flash and Dreamweaver, which weren’t made by them, they were from Macromedia who Adobe sued and then took over. In Adobe’s hands these once great programs have all become nightmarish bug-ridden zombies that barely deserve to be released let alone paid for. They’ve canned Fireworks now, not surprising since it was pretty much broken in previous releases but they threw it in anyway.

Adobe just gave up on Flash for mobiles, it wasn’t because Steve Jobs hated Adobe or Flash, it was because their software wasn’t good enough quality, and rather than try to make it good, they just canned it. Adobe really only cares about easy profit margins and it would quit the creative software industry entirely if it stopped being so easily profitable for them.

When you add that onto the poor customer service, over-investment in sales & marketing instead of development, and the huge and covered-up security breach last year, I am going to take my subscription money and support open-source projects. I really wish there was a strong, well-backed rival suite to kick Adobe into shape. Or better yet, kick them completely to death!

I had CC for a year in a promo price ($30/month in a 1-year contract) back in 2012/2013. After a year they silently auto-renewed for another year and started charging me $50/month, which was way too much. When I wanted to cancel, they told me to pay up for half of the year of subscription per contract (that they renewed themselves). When I said fine, but at least asked them to turn off auto-renewal so I don’t get charged for another year, they said they can’t. So you either pay and cancel early and pay for whatever you did not use, or remember and exactly when they are about to autorenew, call and cancel (because of course you can sign up online, but you can’t cancel online).
WHAT A SCAM.
I was so pissed, I told them to just cancel. They agreed. A few weeks later they started sending me emails to pay them $$$ I ‘owed’ them for the service I did not use, want or order. Glad my credit card expired at that time so I could just show them the finger and they got nothing from me. They behave like a mafia, all they want is your $$$, their eyes sparkle and turn into $ signs when they see the dollars. Everything else is secondary at Adobe. Making software? Meh just a cover up to making more money. Users? Oh you mean the cash cows? I bet they call users cash cows internally and laugh at it.
I’ll stick to my old CS 6 as long as it works, and I’m sure by the time I need new software, there will be something new and fresh in the market.

I agree that Photoshop CC is the buggiest version since I first started using Photoshop back with Photoshop 7. We are having constant trouble withe the spell check crashing, hyphenation options dialog box crashing, freezing and general crashing. Photoshop 7 was the single most reliable, predictable and stable piece of software I ever used. I was so impressed. Photoshop CC is the most problematic piece of software on my computer.

Adobe has always been famous for several things. Among them are overpriced software, poor customer support, and software that consumes every available resource it can find.

For graphics, I use either the GIMP (available in all flavors–Mac, PC, linux) or an even less powerful program. Both of them do the jobs I need them to do.

Adobe’s fascist approach to software (“You VILL do it our vay! Ve know vat is best for you!”) i believe can be traced to its roots with Apple and the Steve Jobs “Trust me; I’m an expert!” philosophy. And while Apple has changed for the better over the years, Adobe has only become more entrenched.

I have had nothing but bad experiences with both software and support from Adobe. I will never buy a product from them again.

We installed adobe Illustrator cloud at work simply so another employee could make label changes at the label printer if I am out of the office.
WELL – So much for that! Cloud did not recognize valid fonts that work on CS6 (Bradley and Helvetica) and made me purchase them to the tune of $29 and $32 only to realize that families of fonts no longer exist for them. If I need Bold Helvetica that will be another $32.
It also does not seem to work to find and replace the old fonts with the new ones. You have to go line by line and replace and fix… this completely negates the idea of making things easier around here.
Adobe Cloud? you suck.
Highly Recommend not switching to it!

I wanted to see the program, my brother uses FinalCut Pro on his Mac and I wanted a PC equivalent.

First step, try out a pirated copy – just to ‘see’ this thing in action with all the features unlocked – to be honest, a friend had it handy and I thought, what the heck. it was up and running for about a 10 minutes and it loaded up fine, etc. Just a brief glimpse of what it looked like was enough to tell me that this was pretty much what I was looking for.

Okay, this looks good – let’s uninstall the pirate copy and head over to the Adobe website and install the 30 day trial with a view to buying it after the trial expires.

Now the problems begin –

During installation of the Creative Cloud all my desktop icons vanished – and everything borders on a serious crash. Quick, hard reset. Machine powered down

I signed up for Creative Cloud for a year, and almost every time I tried to use it I was blocked by an update requirement that took forever to download, or gave me an error and “try again later.”

Then Adobe had a Creative Cloud security breach, but failed to let customers know until months after our credit card info was stolen! This was shocking, and caused a lot of problems with having to cancel cards, fill out theft reports, etc.

It seemed like we were paying to be beta testers on a system that wasn’t ready for prime time. For example, Muse was constantly being updated, but why wasn’t it more fully developed before being released? And due to the many glitches in Creative Cloud, I was never able to fully use most of the CC applications anyway. I kept opening my older desktop CS versions just to get things done.

I’ve used Adobe products since the first CS, but finally cancelled Creative Cloud due to all the system hassles, the identity theft problems, and the fact that I didn’t want to be forced to rent software forever in order to maintain access to my own work product.

It’s a shame, because they have great software, but the Creative Cloud is not only a bad business model for Adobe, but also a bad business decision for users. I hope Adobe reconsiders and offers some better alternatives in the future.

I work with designers from around the world and was forced to upgrade to Creative Cloud about a year ago. It’s been OK, but not great. I hate the amount of time required for downloading, endless updating, etc. And let’s be honest, the product is not that much better for all the time I feel I am wasting in downloading and updating. My 1-year subscription for a monthly fee of 29.99 ended and the monthly fee jumped 60% for 49.99 which is quite significant for one-person design company. I called customer service, after a brief conversation with the person who answered the phone, I asked to be transferred to a supervisor. Long story short, the supervisor had the ability to alter my monthly charge to $29.99 for another year. I thanked him profusely. I echo what others have written – I wish there was valid competitor in the market place other than Adobe. I am grateful for the year extension on the discounted price, yet can’t help but feel like I’m being held an gunpoint.

Many people need more than just Photoshop. With the Cloud the cost really adds up when you add on Adobe programs besides just Photoshop. You can still Buy Adobe CS6 Master Collection for Only $151.00 which has Photoshop CS6 Extended, Illustrator CS6, InDesign CS6 and just about all Adobe software and it downloads right from Adobe who makes this Adobe software.

I started out on Adobe’s $29.99 trial basis, and though it later was a painful jump to $49.99, it has been worth it for me, as I use Premiere, After Effects, Photoshop and InDesign on a daily basis for client projects. I haven’t experienced the constant crashes others write about here, and while the updates often seem pointless and painfully slow, they work great..

My only running complaint with Adobe CC is that instead of adding new features and effects to their programs, they are too focused on mobile apps. Some of us still work on desktop computers, not on cellphones.

I am highly disappointed in Adobe’s Creative Cloud. I bought it for a graduate student to use on a project. And we never used it. My credit card just happened to expire at the same time my 1-year commitment was up. I didn’t update the credit card on the site and assumed that Adobe wouldn’t charge an expired credit card. But no they did and renewed me for another year. They continued to charge the expired credit card for 4 months meanwhile every month saying they were going to cancel my membership unless I updated my information. Of course every month they just charged it again.Who needs to keep credit card information up to date when they can just charge you on an expired card.

info: You are now chatting with Sandeep Singh.
James : Hello sandeep
James : I have spoken with you guys recently and you told me I could use FLVs if I download CS6 premiere and CS6 media encoder
James : but it still ownt work
James : please see video
James : Your file was successfully uploaded: trubshoot.mp4.
info: Your chat transcript will be sent to steven.james924@gmail.com at the end of your chat.
Sandeep Singh: Please allow me a moment while I look into your account & verify the details.
Sandeep Singh: Please Elaborate your Issue
Sandeep Singh: Are you there ?
James : yes
James : okay did you watch the video?
James : I was told CS6 premiere and CS6 AME would let me use FLV
James : but it still wont work
Sandeep Singh: Can you please elaborate the Issue that you are facing ?
James : any ideas?
Sandeep Singh: When you say you want to use them
Sandeep Singh: Are facing issue in Importing the file ?
James : yes
James : I need to edit them. I will export as something else (wmv, mp4 etc)
Sandeep Singh: James, there is no support available for CS6
Sandeep Singh: Please use Adobe forums to get help
James : no no, you don’t understand
James : you already did give me support
James : You sold me a product…a very expensive one.
James : THEN you took away support for FLV files
James : and you specifically told me to spend an hour and a half downloading CS6
James : and that it would work
Sandeep Singh: We can provide support for CC, CC 2014 & CC 2015 products
James : yes I HAVE CC
James : did you look at the previous chats?
Sandeep Singh: Are you trying to import FLV in Premiere Pro CC ?
James : but when you removed compatibility for flv you set up CS6 as the solution for flvs
James : it’s impossible
James : but yes i did try
James : you guys told me i would have to download CS6 AME and convert it to something else first
Sandeep Singh: James, please find support on Forums.Adobe.com
James : no
James : you guys are the ones that told me to download CS6 AME
James : i spent 1.5 hours doing that
Sandeep Singh: The only support available for CS6 is Forums.Adobe.com
James : apologize
James : this is horrible support and you are being dismissive
James : apologize first
James : then I’ll go to the forums
Sandeep Singh: Why should i apologize ?
James : people should have to tell you to apologize when their experience is so horrible
James : are you serious?
James : because of the severe inconvenience. thats why
James : what kind of business is this?
James : you realize you’re representing adobe right?
Sandeep Singh: You wanted to use FLV file, you were given an information that for FLV file you need to use Premiere Pro CS6
James : as a customer service representative, you apologize on behalf of the company
James : standard stuff
James : i’m reporting this. this is absolutely unbelievable

I purchased a personal account for Creative Cloud over a year ago. The software works well, as anyone who uses it knows, but the company itself is terrible to deal with. For a year I used the personal account for my own projects, but eventually I started using it more and more for work. I convinced my employer that we needed to update the Adobe software we had a work, and so my employer bought a team Creative Cloud membership – and so, I no longer needed my personal Creative Cloud account. I called Adobe in June of 2015 to cancel the membership and I explained the above to the representative. The rep said, how about we just suspend your account for the time being, that way, if you want to have a personal account again, you’ll be locked in at the low price you’re currently paying, which was roughly 29 bucks a month. I said sure, sounded fine to do to me. What I was not told is that what the representative was actually proposing was that she give me credits for two free months of Creative Cloud and that there was a negative option auto-renewal (negative option means you don’t tell them you want to renew, they just automatically “renew” you). Renew is in quotes for me because prior to this I was on a personal, month to month account paying just $29 a month. Well, the auto-renewal locked me into a 1 year membership at 54 bucks a month, WITH a termination fee if I wanted to end the contract I never agreed to enter into. I noticed this on my bank statement after 3 months of charges from them. When I called to clear it up, they essentially said well that’s just too bad. They then “offered” me to waive my cancellation fee (mind you, I didn’t sign up for a 1 year contract at any point), and told me there was absolutely no way they’d give me back the money over the last three months. When I explained that my employer was now paying for my account plus 4 others at work based on me being a brand ambassador for Creative Cloud, they still didn’t care. When I explained to them that it would make no sense for me to agree to pay for a personal account when I already have an account through work, and that they could see I haven’t logged into the personal account since I called to cancel back in June of 2015, they still didn’t care. It’s not their policy to give refunds and that’s that.

What a horrible way to do business, and what a horrible way to treat a loyal customer who was promoting your brand. I’m now trying to inform people in as many places as possible that while the software is good, their business practices are not. Beware, monitor your statements, know they there is a negative option for contract renewal, and they will not notify you of fee increases, you’ll just have to notice those on your own.

Worst customer service ever! Took a month to resolve my query regarding an account which was signed up for fraudulently with my bank details, then will not even issue a $1 refund for fraudulent use of said account. If they treat their employees the way customer service treats their customers, no wonder the service is the worst I’ve ever come across. Poor form Adobe. What’s a month subscription refund to you??

My work bought me Creative Cloud 2 months ago. I wanted to like it. I did Lynda.com tutorials. I used it daily for over a month.

Then I installed an old copy of Dreamweaver MX (!) and my own Photoshop CS5. It’s really shocking how software that’s 13 and 5 years old, respectively, is far superior in usability and flexibility to something brand new.

Try cancelling a subscription, Adobe, a computer company can’t schedule cancellations, they forced me to jump through their customer support hurdles twice to cancel. Apparently the 12 days before my next renewal were too hard to plug into a scheduler, weird since the payments to them always happen at the same time. Whoever has to enter all those must work fast? 🙂

Simply call your credit card company and insist they reverse the charges. They have to do it if you tell them usually within 45 days of the charges appearing. You might have to agree to hold the credit card company faultless, but you can stick it to Adobe.

I have had a miserable time canceling my Creative Cloud and Photography plan!!! First of all I have no email records to associate my Creative Cloud so they cant find it, but they find my credit card every month! And as for my photography plan January is my the end of my second year and I should be able to cancel. When I call I can’t talk to anyone else besides by representative that insist I have to pay half of my subscription! Adobe has the market place on these tools Students need for classes and I am Extremely Disappointed In the Process and the way you get blown off through the cancellation process online and on the phone!!

I have spent 10years building my credit and Canceling my card SHOULD NOT have to be an option!

I love Adobe products and used Premiere for video editing, Photoshop for drawing and photo editing and Audition for recording and mixing audio, but I agree that their customer service is horrendous.

I subscribed for the creative cloud membership for an annual monthly payment and after the 12 months were up (which I wasn’t notified of the date by email or anything) I was charged 30% more which was going to continue for the rest of the year and when I tried to cancel on my own it said that I would have to pay 6 months “cancellation fee” even though it was the first day of my “new contract”. I called customer service and I found the sales tactics to be highly offensive. I was wondering why my monthly charge was increased this year without any contact informing me that there was going to be an increase in the charge. The representative then told me that the monthly price is subject to change and that the rate that I started with was no longer valid. I told him I wanted to cancel. He told me what if he could give me one month free. I told him I would rather cancel. He told me what if he could give me two months free, I told him I really, really would rather cancel. He told me to wait as he’ll see if he can get a better offer from his supervisor. He then told me I could have three months free and I told him I would rather cancel, mostly because I really hate these types of sales tactics. He then put me back on hold again and after all of that he told me that he could get me in at the same rate that I had previously, but because of all of this nonsense I told him that I would rather cancel because I do not want to support a business that provides such poor communication about the fees of their software and uses sleasy salesman tactics like returning with a better offer that is a “one time exlusive offer” for me that becomes better every time that I tell them that I want to cancel instead of just offering their best option to start. He told me that he would cancel my membership and refund the first month’s payment but that this “lower rate” offer that he was giving me was a one time option and that may not be available in the future if I decide to come back in a couple months. I told him I understand. He then asked me if I knew about the self-cancellation option on the website. I didn’t receive any communication about the increase in fees or that my annual subscription would be renewed so why would I self-cancel? When I tried self-canceling before the call it told me that I would have to pay 6 months of my monthly subscription even though it was the first day of my new annual membership. This whole creative cloud subscription based software is such a scam.

Now it’s time for me to find alternatives to the Adobe products that I love.

I just think about should I pay for DW CC.I have many problem with this program.Program always “no responding” and working slowly I cant event type my code or open file.I try every step to delete configuration file or uninstall and install again.All the solution is not working so I don’t know why what it happening with this program.

Adobe CC is killing fair amount of my time …each time I restart my machine ….I need to download the newer version of it otherwise no adobe tool will work….after paying so much money (or they looting) we need to wast time on that ….

I definitely have doubt Adobe is filled with illiterates otherwise they have not taken this steps

I have been an Adobe product user for since the 90s. The one year subscription automatically renews and increases 1/3 in price. When you try to cancel, they state that you are in a “contract” and you must pay 1/2 of the contract amount $150. There is no two party consent to the contract and no end date so I’m not sure this is contractual. I would think this might be a good basis for a class action against Adobe. I paid the fee – will use open source to replace Adobe products